Our family had a 1968 MFG 16 foot boat with a 60 HP Johnson. The transom rotted out and "broke" our boat in 1978. They were fiberglass over plywood structures. Water seeped in and saturated the plywood in the transom (caused some rot) and froze in the winter weakening the fiberglass..... We were fortunate to discover the problem before hitting a wave. The same construction was used to make the floor and structural members. The article did not say what happened to this particular vessel. I would guess it was something similar.
We are all fortunate the problem happened during this time of the year and not much later or in the spring time when less people are around or the water temperature becomes numbing!
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